The invention relates to wall structures, and more particularly to a modular shear metal wall structure unit that is prefabricated and adaptable for the bracing of and construction of building wall structures in light gauge steel that will withstand wind and seismic loads.
It has been common practice to build prefabricated roof structures of wood. Some wall structures have been fabricated also of wood. U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,216 describes several wood prefabricated wall and roof structures that use metal interconnecting plates.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,067,403, shows a metal building structure in which elements called channel elements are secured to gather to form the walls and other structures. The single channel elements are used to form the fame of the walls.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,813, a building wall is made using a metal frame which is braced with stiffening members that have an I-beam shape.
The invention is a prefabricated wall section that is used in the construction of steel framed walls for buildings and performs as the bracing mechanism for the building structure. Each prefabricated section is placed separately or beside another section between a top plate and a bottom plate. Every other panel maybe upside down with respect to the adjacent panel so that the ends of a diagonal brace in each panel is adjacent to the diagonal brace in the adjacent panel, but multiple configurations may be used in which some adjacent panels are of the same orientation of the adjacent panel. Each panel may have a movable or swiveling section to accommodate an angled portion of the wall.